Richardson Pioneer Ltd., Winnipeg, Man., announced on Aug. 28 that it has acquired two new crop inputs facilities in northeastern Alberta – Webb’s Crop Services Ltd. in Vermilion, and Agro Guys Inc. near Forestburg. The acquisitions will close on Aug. 31 and employees will join the Richardson Pioneer team on Sept. 1.

Richardson said both businesses are independent, full-service retail crop inputs centers that provide local growers with seed, fertilizer, and crop protection products. Customers at both locations will also have access to grain handling and merchandising support through Richardson’s Ag Business Centers in Lamont, Lavoy, and Legacy Junction, Alba., and Marshall, Sask.

“Both businesses have been key service providers in their markets,” said Tom Hamilton, vice president of Agribusiness Operations at Richardson. “We look forward to establishing a presence in these communities by working with local farmers to provide them with leading products and technologies, year-round support through our CropWatchTM agronomy team, and Richardson Pioneer’s best-in-class service.”

Richardson is expanding its retail presence in Western Canada. The company acquired Crop First Agro in Grenfell, Sask., in January, and recently opened a new crop inputs location in Elrose, Sask. Construction will be completed on a facility in Pasqua, Sask., later this fall, and Richardson will open another new crop inputs center near Wakaw, Sask., next spring. Richardson Pioneer is a division of Richardson International Ltd., which has more than 2,500 employees across Canada, the U.S., and the U.K.

“We are focused on aggressively growing our retail crop inputs network across the Prairies,” Hamilton said. “Whether through acquisition, building new, or enhancing our existing facilities, we will continue to pursue opportunities to expand our Richardson Pioneer network and offer our services to more customers in strategic locations.”

Agrium Inc. announced on Aug. 22 that Mike Frank has accepted the position of president of Agrium Retail, effective Sept. 18, 2017. Frank will be responsible for all of Agrium’s global Retail operations, including Crop Production Services (CPS) in North America, Landmark in Australia, and the company’s South American retail operations.

“We are very excited to welcome Mike to Agrium. With almost three decades of experience in agriculture, he is very well known and highly respected across the crop input industry,” said Chuck Magro, Agrium president and CEO. “Mike has a clear mandate to grow our Retail business. He is an exceptional people leader, and I look forward to working with him to continue to develop and grow our talent and business to ensure we remain the leading provider of crop inputs and solutions for our global farm customers.”

Frank comes to Agrium from Monsanto, where he held a variety of senior positions, recently serving as the lead Monsanto senior executive planning the pending integration with Bayer. Frank’s last position with Monsanto was vice president and chief commercial officer of the company’s global business. He previously held vice president roles across a number of divisions within Monsanto, including Global Manufacturing, Supply Chain operations, Crop Protection Business, Global Product Strategy, and International Commercial operations. Frank earlier served as president of Monsanto China.

Frank has also been on the boards of CropLife International and CropLife America, as well as World Trade Center St. Louis. He holds an agricultural engineering degree from the University of Saskatchewan and an MBA from Northwestern University.

Lower commodity margins impacted Yara International ASA’s second quarter results, with net income after non-controlling interests falling to NOK 699 million (NOK 2.56 per share) for the quarter, down from last year’s NOK 3,072 million (NOK 11.23 per share). Excluding net foreign exchange gain and special items, net income for the quarter was NOK 2.90 per share, compared with NOK 6.29 per share in second-quarter 2016.

“Our industry is facing strong oversupply of urea and other commodity nitrogen products, and we have expected this development for some time,” said Svein Tore Holsether, Yara president and CEO. “We are therefore focused on improving our operations, and making growth investments primarily within premium fertilizer and industrial applications where margins are more stable.”

Second-quarter EBITDA excluding special items was NOK 2,873 million, down 27 percent from last year, due mainly to higher energy costs and lower realized prices. Total fertilizer deliveries were 3 percent lower than in second quarter 2016. Adjusted for the divestment of Yara’s CO2 business last year, Industrial deliveries were 8 percent higher than last year.

Yara said second-quarter margins were impacted by higher gas costs and lower realized prices. The company’s average realized urea fertilizer prices were down 7 percent from last year, while realized nitrate and NPK prices were down 1 percent and 5 percent, respectively. Yara said its average global gas costs were 24 percent higher than a year ago.

Looking ahead, Yara said its Improvement Program and growth pipeline are on track to deliver a minimum annual earnings improvement of NOK 17 per share by 2020. It said the global farm margin outlook and incentives for fertilizer application remain supportive overall, while the price trend for cereal, meat, and dairy has been positive year-to-date

Yara said it is seeing normal order rates in Europe at the start of the new season, at higher prices than a year ago, and expects roughly stable European nitrogen consumption for the 2017/18 season. Based on current forward markets for oil products and natural gas, Yara said its spot energy costs for the next two quarters are expected to be approximately NOK 225 million higher than a year earlier.

Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. confirmed on July 6 that it has released a summer fill program for potash, with dealer reference tons offered at $250/st FOB Midwest terminals and barges at a $215/st FOB NOLA equivalent. The program requires orders to be placed from July 6 to July 14, with shipment completed by Sept. 30. PotashCorp said all new orders placed after July 14 will be up $20/st from that pricing level.

Simplot announced on June 27 that it has acquired two retail locations in Cardston and Pincher Creek, Alba., from McRae Holdings, a crop nutrition products supplier that serves the markets of southern and central Alberta and the eastern Kootenays.

Simplot said the two retail stores provide comprehensive agriculture services and technologies and will offer a variety of products and services under Simplot ownership, including seeds, technology, specialty products, crop nutrition, and crop protection products.

“We are committed to the people and employees in Pincher Creek and Cardston and to the customers and larger agriculture community in the area,” said Dave Dufault, vice president and general manager of Simplot’s AgriBusiness Retail division. “We’re thrilled to join two vibrant Alberta farming communities and are excited about working with partners to help ensure they get the most out of their efforts each year.”

Simplot said it will retain the current McRae Holdings staff members at each location. The acquisition adds to Boise-based Simplot’s existing footprint in Alberta, which includes a fertilizer warehouse in Chin and a potato processing plant in Portage la Prairie. According to its website, McRae Holdings still operates a storage and blending facility in Stettler, Alba.

“The existing employees have invaluable knowledge of local agriculture and customer needs,” said Greg Olson, Simplot area manager. “We’ll provide the training needed for our products and services and will rely on them to help us provide the highest possible service to farmers in the area.”

Jay D. Debertin has been elected president and CEO of CHS Inc., according to a May 22 announcement from the company. CHS said its board of directors selected Debertin to succeed Carl Casale, who led CHS during record performance levels and expansion.

Debertin previously served as executive vice president and chief financial officer for CHS’s energy operations and processing food ingredients business. He joined CHS in 1984 and has held a variety of leadership positions with the organization in energy, trading and risk management, transportation, and agricultural processing. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of North Dakota, and an MBA from the University of Wisconsin.

“As we take our cooperative into its next chapter, we are confident that Jay is the right leader,” said Dan Schurr, chairman of the CHS board. “Jay’s experience in achieving operational excellence and driving results fits squarely with our unwavering goal to deliver returns to our member-owners now and for the long term.”

During Casale’s seven years with the company, CHS said it returned $3 billion to its owners, invested $9 billion in new capital expenditures, and nearly doubled the size of its balance sheet from $8.7 billion in 2010 to $17.3 billion at the end of fiscal 2016.

Agrium Inc. announced on April 18 that it has successfully commissioned its new urea plant with the first run of urea production at the Borger Nitrogen Operations facility in Texas. The company said it continues to ramp up production and expects to reach full operational capacity by the end of the second quarter of 2017. Capacity for the new facility is rated at 610,000 mt/y of urea, of which 100,000 mt will be Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF).

“The successful completion of our first run of urea production from our Borger nitrogen expansion project continues to emphasize our commitment to operational excellence and creating shareholder value at Agrium,” said Agrium President and CEO Chuck Magro. “We look forward to bringing our reliable and high quality urea and DEF products to existing and new customers in this key agricultural region of the U.S.”

Agrium announced its plan to proceed with the $720 million Borger expansion in February 2014 (GM March 3, 2014). At that time, Agrium said the project would also increase annual ammonia capacity at Borger by approximately 145,000 mt/y, but the company opted against the ammonia debottleneck in August 2015 (GM Aug. 10, 2015), citing high costs and significantly longer downtime. Agrium places current ammonia production at Borger at approximately 453,000 mt/y.

A federal judge has dismissed the Des Moines Water Works (DMWW) lawsuit against three Iowa counties over nitrate pollution from farm runoff. Federal Judge Leonard Strand on March 17 threw out the case against ten drainage districts in Sac, Buena Vista, and Calhoun counties, ruling that the water pollution alleged in the lawsuit is an issue for the Iowa legislature to address.

The case had drawn national attention due to DMWW’s claim that the drainage districts – with their use of field tiles and discharge pipes – should be regulated as point-source polluters under the Clean Water Act, and therefore subject to National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) standards and permitting. The federal government currently considers water from farmlands as surface runoff and exempts it from NPDES permitting regulations.

“We hope this decision represents the final chapter on this issue,” said Chris Jahn, president of The Fertilizer Institute (TFI), in a March 20 statement. “While this suit was directed at drainage districts, it was really a counterproductive challenge to Iowa’s farmers. The quest for water quality solutions belongs in the field and with our research institutions, not in a courtroom. The farm economy is facing stiff challenges, so it is particularly unfortunate that the significant financial resources spent on legal defense were not, instead, dedicated to agricultural research on 4R nutrient management practices.”

The dismissal of the lawsuit comes just weeks after an Iowa Senate agriculture subcommittee approved a bill (GM March 17, p. 16) that proposes to dismantle the DMWW in favor of a regional water board. Earlier this year (GM Feb. 17, p. 1), the Iowa Supreme Court also ruled against the DMWW, stating that the public water utility could not sue for damages because state law grants the drainage districts “unqualified immunity” from such claims.

St. Paul-based CHS Inc. announced on March 16 that it has purchased Western Co-op Transport Assoc., a business based in Montevideo, Minn., that specializes in the transportation of bulk liquid products, including liquid fertilizer, ethanol, propane, and petroleum.

“This acquisition strengthens our position in core markets and will allow us to expand our transportation and logistics services to create additional value for our owners and customers,” said Patrick Hessini, CHS vice president, transportation and distribution.

Dispatch and routing operations for the business will now move to the CHS dispatch office in Rosemount, Minn. The Montevideo facility will remain in operation as a CHS-owned fleet service center. CHS said it will begin serving customer accounts immediately. The markets served by Western Co-op include Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas.